Emily Dickinson Research Paper

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As our nation and culture evolved, so did American literature. The 1800 century birth some of the greatest authors for example, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. The 1800s was a time of new and exciting change in literary culture in America. Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are some of the most famous poets for their impact on American poetry. Their unique works challenged and revolutionized both the subject and style of American poetry. Although both poets are very famous and from the same era, their works paint two very different authors. The two others come from very different backgrounds, one living in a time were woman were not seen as equal and the other a man during the American Civil war. Both authors did derive inspiration for their …show more content…

“It is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive that like the spirit of a plant or an animal it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing” was what Emerson said which ignited the search of ingenuity within Whitman and Dickinson. The pursuit for an original and innovated form of poetry fueled Emerson and Whitman to develop their own styles. Whitman’s works are rooted in the use of nature to create the imagery throughout his poems, such as in “Song of Myself”, “The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,” (24 Whitman). The use of nature as imagery was a shared technique of both authors for example, “These are the days when skies resume / The old – old sophistries of June - / A blue and gold mistake,” was a few lines taken from one of Dickinson’s poems. Additionally, because of the era and background challenges they encountered they both authors submitted some of their writing to political focused works. Whitman was published by Democrat, while Dickinson’s work was picked up by the Republican, while Whitman’s was published by the opposing group, the Democrats. Although just speculation, both poets were presumed to be gay. This, however, is where the two authors similarities end because they are more opposite than they are

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Emily Dickinson Research Paper